Force management systems for use in planning, scheduling and managing personnel in a telephone call center are known in the prior art. Such systems typically include a basic planning capability to enable a call center supervisor to forecast future call loads and the number of agents necessary to service that load. Most prior art systems also include a simple scheduling capability which then functions to allocate agent work hours according to the staffing requirements that have been forecast. Agents are then manually or automatically assigned to fill the schedules. These systems usually also include other administrative and reporting capabilities.
An improved method and system to provide planning and scheduling is shown in Castonguay et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,911,134), which is assigned to the assignee of this application and incorporated herein by reference. This system provides an excellent system for automatically developing schedules to meet work flow needs. However, the system of Castonguay et al. fails to provide schedules that take into account the agent's preferences, seniority or other key criteria. It would therefore be desirable to overcome the problems associated with such prior art force management systems.